A queer star has caught the attention of astronomers as many believe that it could be carrying an alien megastructure inside it. The star, known as KIC 8462852, has been observed for four years and the recordings have baffled the scientists.
Some astronomers believe that it could possess an "alien megastructure." A study has been submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and it focuses on the strange light pattern of the said star. Scientists Josh Simon of the Carnegie Institute and Ben Montet of Caltech have studied the data collected by the Kepler telescope that recorded the activities of KIC 8462852 for a period of four years.
KIC 8462852 was spotted by Kepler Space Telescope in 2009 and it is among the 160, 000 stars that were spotted by the telescope in that year, reports USA Today. However, the abnormal light pattern of KIC 8462852 led many to question the star. Simon and Montet studied the star closely and investigated its light pattern with the help of a series of Kepler calibration images.
These images had not been used till then for scientific measurements. Simon and Montet started working in the new direction as they thought that the data could confirm or refute the star's long-term fading. They felt that it would help to clarify the extraordinary dimming events. In the first three years, they found that the star faded just 1 percent and then the rate increased to 2 percent over the next six months. After that, it remained constant till Kepler mission came to an end.
Scientists believe that the strange dimming suggests a large mass of matter, orbiting the star. Some scientists feel that unusual light curve could be due to a mass of comets or even bad data. As of now, no proper conclusion has come out. Though intensive efforts have been made to identify the radio signals coming out from the star, they have proved futile.
It may be mentioned here that Kepler looks for Earth-like planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, by measuring their light patterns. In most of the cases, it measures a uniform light pattern if a planet is orbiting a star.
